Oh, I just love you Bee & Tea! I’m positively obsessed with your tea. And your bao. But mostly your tea.
For those of you that may be Asian tea uninitiated, it’s not this kind of tea:
It’s this kind of tea:
A cold, frothy, tea-based drink that is typically shaken with milk, fruit, and often those little black balls you see there at the bottom of the cup. Those balls are boba, or, tapioca jellies that are chewy little surprises at the bottom of your beverage.
Me, I’m not really a boba girl. Balls in my mouth are just… er, nevermind.
Though everyone should certainly try boba at least once, I tend to lean toward other slurp-able options like red bean or chopped fruit in mine. Luckily, the menu at Bee & Tea has options galore in the tea department, and you can choose whatever suits your slurping fancy.
My formula for perfection:
Jasmine Green Milk Tea
Lightly Sweetened
Coconut
Almond
Red Bean
YUM!! Being that I’m not a boba or jelly fan, I love that I can skip those and get the red bean which still gives me something sweet (but not too sweet) and yummy to suck up through the big boba-fied straw. Pop. Pop. Plus!
I’ve tried a handful of the bao here as well and had mad love for the chorizo and bbq pulled pork buns and pretty much ZERO love for the butter chicken bun. It was bland and boring and didn’t nothing to wow me.
A nice side note: you don’t have to get buns at all and can opt for a quinoa bowl, salad or rice bowl with any of the proteins instead. Choices are nice.
Recently I noticed a barrage of new proteins offerings like cold crab salad, asian sloppy joe and peanut butter and jelly hitting the menu, so they’re clearly working on amping up their offerings to round things out. Just having the buns as the only food item initially seemed a bit limiting.
Overall, the tea will bring me back, but the growing menu keeps me curious.
Bee & Tea | 1843 West North Avenue | Chicago | IL | 60622
I love Bee & Tea! Their bao flavors are delicious but I’ve never tried red bean in my tea before — must do that on my next visit since I love red bean flavored anything!
Great, cheeky post, as always Brett!
Yes!!! Definitely try the red bean — I absolutely adore red bean anything as well and it just MAKES the tea for me.
I love Bee & Tee! Red bean is actually is actually my favorite, but I tend to go for straight red bean w/boba… apparently, I don’t mind balls in my mouth. 😉
Starr, you’re killing me!!!!! All the balls are yours— hehheh.